How the blues saved David Sanborn

Jazz legend David Sanborn has a career that spans half a century. He’s won six Grammy awards and played along side everyone from James Brown to the Rolling Stones, but for him, the blues are much more than just a passion – they helped save his life.

“To me the blues are the truth,” he said at his home overlooking the Hudson River just north of New York City.

As the name would suggest, the blues have long been thought of as the music of misfortune, but such was not the case for one boy growing up in St. Louis during the late 1940s. He learned from the music he listened to on the radio.

“(It) told me that there was something else,” he said. “That there was more to life”